Chapter 12 - The Two Babies
Richard sat down beside Sophie’s room.
For several seconds, he looked incapable of speaking.
Arthur stood over him.
“Two babies.”
Richard rubbed both hands across his face.
“I didn’t know.”
Arthur laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
“I’m serious.”
“Who was pregnant?”
“My sister Evelyn.”
Arthur’s expression tightened at the name of the woman he had always known as Evelyn Vance.
Richard continued.
“She disappeared for most of one year.”
“What year?”
“1973.”
Arthur’s birth followed in May 1974.
“She came home pregnant?”
“No.”
Richard looked confused even remembering it.
“She left thin and returned thin.”
Hannah frowned.
“Then how did anyone know?”
“My mother.”
“Margaret?”
“Yes.”
“She told me Evelyn had a baby.”
Arthur leaned closer.
“A baby?”
Richard swallowed.
“One.”
Arthur held up the photograph.
“There are two.”
“I see that.”
“Did my mother have twins?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer was getting dangerously close to Arthur’s breaking point.
I stepped between them.
“Let him finish.”
Arthur looked at me.
Then backed away.
Richard continued.
“My father told everyone Evelyn had suffered a nervous breakdown and gone to a private facility in Minnesota.”
“Was that true?”
“No idea.”
“When did she marry Harold Vance?”
“Shortly after she returned.”
Arthur’s face shifted.
“My dad met her at a church picnic.”
“Maybe that’s what they told you.”
Arthur went silent.
Richard looked at the photograph again.
“If there were two babies, one may have been taken through Pierce’s adoption network.”
Hannah whispered, “Arthur has a twin?”
Richard looked at her.
“Possibly.”
Arthur laughed in disbelief.
“This family has turned the word possibly into a weapon.”
Cole entered with an officer.
“Pierce is gone.”
My stomach dropped.
“Gone where?”
“His vehicle left employee parking through an emergency exit.”
“Plate?”
“We’re tracking.”
Arthur held up the photograph.
“Did he leave this?”
Cole took it carefully.
“He wants us chasing old mysteries.”
Richard looked toward him.
“Or warning us.”
“About what?”
Richard stared at Arthur.
“Identity.”
Arthur frowned.
Richard continued.
“If Arthur had a twin, and one child was legally recorded through the Sterling family while the other disappeared, inheritance could be involved.”
Arthur looked almost amused.
“I don’t want their money.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Richard looked at Hannah.
“Sterling Industries was sold, but my father’s private trust still exists.”
“How much?”
Richard hesitated.
“Approximately four hundred million dollars.”
The room became very quiet.
Arthur stared.
“Four hundred million.”
“Assets, land, investments.”
“And who inherits?”
Richard’s expression tightened.
“The surviving biological descendants of Margaret Sterling.”
Hannah slowly looked toward Arthur.
“If Dad is Evelyn’s son—”
“He qualifies.”
Richard nodded.
“And so do you.”
Hannah looked at Sophie.
“And her.”
Arthur finally understood.
“The bloodline threat.”
Richard nodded.
“The Vance bloodline ends in bed seven.”
“That wasn’t about some military secret.”
“Maybe both.”
Cole crossed his arms.
“Who currently controls the trust?”
Richard’s expression darkened.
“Pierce Financial Trustees.”
I stared.
“Jonathan Pierce.”
“Yes.”
Arthur laughed.
“There it is.”
Cole’s phone rang.
He answered.
After less than a minute, he hung up.
“They found Pierce’s car.”
“Where?”
“Airport parking.”
Arthur stood.
“He left?”
“No flight under his name.”
Richard whispered, “He has other names.”
Cole looked at him.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
Arthur glared.
Richard sighed.
“Three that I remember.”
Cole began taking them down.
Meanwhile, Hannah sat beside Sophie.
She looked pale.
I checked her blood pressure.
High.
Too high.
“You need to lie down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You recently delivered a premature baby and spent two days running around Omaha.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding?”
Her face changed.
Arthur looked at her.
“Hannah?”
She looked embarrassed.
“A little.”
“How much?”
I did not wait.
We transferred Hannah to obstetrics.
She had retained placental tissue and signs of infection.
Within an hour, she was being prepared for a procedure.
Arthur sat outside her room.
His hands shook.
“This is my fault.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
“If she hadn’t been running because of me—”
“She was running from criminals.”
“My family.”
“Not you.”
He looked at me.
“They used my name before I was born. They stole my daughter. Threatened her child.”
His voice dropped.
“Every person I love seems to get hurt.”
I sat beside him.
“Then stop confusing proximity with responsibility.”
He stared.
“You are here because you showed up.”
Arthur looked through the small window in Hannah’s door.
“That’s all?”
“Sometimes that’s everything.”
The procedure went well.
Hannah would recover.
Sophie remained stable.
For six quiet hours, nothing else happened.
Then Cole returned.
He had located a record from 1974.
A private maternity clinic in Council Bluffs.
Two male infants born to Evelyn Sterling.
Twin A transferred to St. Jude’s predecessor charity program.
Twin B discharged to mother.
Arthur looked at the records.
“Which am I?”
“The birth weights differ.”
Arthur did not know his.
Richard did.
“You were seven pounds, two ounces.”
Arthur looked at him.
“How do you know that?”
Richard’s face softened.
“My mother told me.”
Cole checked.
Twin B: seven pounds, two ounces.
Arthur had gone home with Evelyn.
Twin A had been transferred.
“To where?” Arthur asked.
Cole’s expression tightened.
“Records say deceased.”
Arthur’s face fell.
“So there’s no twin.”
Cole raised one finger.
“That’s the problem.”
“What?”
“No death certificate.”
Arthur stared.
“There should be.”
“Yes.”
“Then what happened to him?”
Cole looked toward the old adoption investigation.
“We found another document.”
He handed Arthur a photocopy.
An adoption intake form.
Male infant.
Same birth date.
Same birth weight as Twin A.
Adoptive surname redacted in the surviving copy.
The placement agency was Pierce Family Services.
Arthur read it.
“He lived.”
“Looks that way.”
“Can we find him?”
“Maybe.”
Richard took the page.
He stared at an old handwritten signature at the bottom.
Then his face changed.
“No.”
Arthur turned.
“What?”
Richard pointed at the witness signature.
Gerald Sloan.
Rebecca’s father.
Hannah, weak but awake in the nearby room, whispered,
“What if Rebecca knew?”
Arthur stared.
“Knew what?”
“That Gerald helped place the twin.”
Richard went pale.
Arthur suddenly remembered Rebecca’s words.
You Vances always lie.
Not Vance.
Plural.
Arthur had assumed she meant Thomas and him.
Maybe she meant someone else.
Cole’s phone rang again.
This time, his expression hardened immediately.
“We have a visitor downstairs.”
Arthur’s stomach tightened.
“Who?”
Cole looked directly at him.
“A man asking for Arthur Vance.”
Arthur almost laughed.
“What is this, some kind of family reunion?”
Cole did not smile.
“He gave his name as Daniel Cross.”
Richard stopped breathing.
Arthur noticed.
“You know him.”
Richard stood very slowly.
“Daniel Cross was the name on one of Pierce’s adoption files.”
Arthur stared.
Richard whispered,
“If I’m right, Arthur…”
May you like
He looked toward the elevator.
“That man downstairs is your twin brother.”
